Hear Me, Ithakans
by Memento Amor
Summary: Ben's having a tough time with the plot for his new novel, and when he steps back to find some inspiration, he gets a lot more than what he bargained for. Heavy allusions to Homer's The Odyssey.


**AN;** Hey, all. I know it's been a while since I actually wrote something - and the two stories I have up on here anyway are kinda lame - but I thought I'd give it one more shot with this one which, personally, I feel confident about. It's a first in many aspects - it's the first legitimate story I've written in about a year, and it's the first chapter story I've written in three. It's also my first Queer as Folk story, so excuse me for that, and it's my first story for a live-action series in general. It kinda hard to get used to, but I think I've got the swing of it. Hopefully, you agree. :]

**Warnings**; Occasional use of OCs, ridiculous length (thirty pages on Word - seriously) possible OOCness (I'm new at this, what do you expect?) and a distinct lack of sexytiemz. Sorry, it's not really my thing. Oh, an I really annoyingly reference _The Odyssey_ a lot. Check out this dorky kid. What a dork.

**Hear Me, Ithakans**

I; Of The Lotus And Cicones

_"Take me back to the London town_

_That brought me up, cause it's bringing me down_

_And I will pay you solid gold, my friend, yeah_

_Please take me back to the town I miss_

_Now morphed into antithesis of_

_Everything it used to be_

_I'm so so."_

- Gary Go, _So So_

There was only a certain amount of thought that one could expel on a certain topic before they silently willed their brain to explode from sheer frustration. Anything - and I do mean anything - would be better than being constantly reminded by that mutinous thought process of yours, "Hey! Guess what? You suck."

That, of course, is the mindset of any jaded novelist after they've let the novelty of their literary abilities wear off. Ben Bruckner, of course, nearly bit his tongue every time he tried to convince himself of this, because when he did, he was almost always met with the thought of, "Jaded? What gives you the right to be jaded?" So, yes, it was just two books, and it wasn't as if they were best-sellers or award-winners or, hell, he wasn't even sure that he'd sold more than a few hundred copies. But it was still the idea that as the years went by, the creative process had, to be frank and as unflinchingly blunt as possible, slowly dissipated.

So he tried not to think about it. Right now, he had much more pressing matters to attend to, like why there seemed to be so much goddamn snow on his driveway. He made a mental note to get a new shovel from the Big Q sometime that week, lest the rest of the winter be filled with people falling on their slippery driveway. It had already happened once, and he and Michael didn't need another earful from Debbie. She had an ample amount of opportunities without adding another one.

It was one of those winter days that, for lack of a better term, just truly and utterly sucked. One of those days when the weather decided to be fickle, hitting them with one of the hardest snowstorms of the season before shoving the sun out there to make everything all slushy and disgusting. The kind of day that, while shoveling your driveway, you still managed to sweat somehow, and sweating when wearing a heavy jacket was, as most people would know, horrible. There was a sort of dry chill in there, not terrible enough to give you a cold but bad enough to make your eyes sting.

But this was his best option, at the moment.

To get down to the root of things, Ben was working on his newest novel. _RU12_ had been, for a book written by a generally unknown author on a generally untouched topic, moderately successful. His second book, after all its revisions, had been a tad more successful, but Ben still didn't have his own Wikipedia page. So, he reasoned with himself that three is a lucky number, and that a third book definitely seemed to be in the cards for him. His editor had agreed, and the two had dived headfirst into the project.

And lo and behold, just as the project was gaining its ground, he was hit with the most massive and incapacitating case of writer's block known to man and a certain race of highly intelligent dolphins.

He had to admit that he had started out with the same cookie-cutter format that his last two books had followed. It had nagged at him when writing the exposition - he felt the strangest sense of déjà vu as he slowly made progress. It was about a week after he'd picked up the pen and started writing that he was basically writing a clone of the exposition from _RU12_, only with slightly different wording.

This is where his productivity had really taken a nosedive. He'd crumpled up what little work he'd already finished and set out to forming a plotline that _wasn't_ rehashing the whole HIV plot device. To be frank, where he was supposed to be "living in the now" and all that, he realized that he took an awful lot of time with his mind on his illness.

No problem, he'd thought. I just need to develop a different plot. No big deal.

It was now two and a half weeks since he had thought those very words, and he'd had no more than four or five shaky ideas, all of which he had quickly ruled out.

So here he was, shoveling snow from his driveway with the most bitter taste in his mouth, taking in the sights of graying slush and the general aestheticism of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

And none of this was really helping him.

"Dude, it's not a race, you know."

He looked up at the shout coming from the house, and turned to see Hunter perched on the porch, a wide grin set on his face. He sighed, setting aside the piece of shit and plastic that the Big Q had tried to pass off as a shovel. As much as he hadn't wanted Hunter to see him taking out his emotional frustrations on a few piles of frozen water, he was right. There had to be a more constructive way of dealing with his mental block than taking it out on the poor snow banks.

As Ben made his way towards the porch, Hunter pushed himself from his leaning position on the railing and shoved his hands in his jean pockets.

"What do you think you're doing out here without a jacket?" Ben asked, his voice betraying his obvious exasperation. "You could get sick out here like that."

His son rolled his eyes. "Says the guy sweating buckets. What are you doing out here, anyway?" He jerked his head towards the driveway for emphasis. "Michael cleared the driveway off earlier this week. Why go to the trouble?"

"The slush was starting to freeze over and it was making the driveway slippery." Ben unzipped his jacket and clapped his hand on Hunter's shoulder, motioning for him to go back inside. "Deb nearly broke her hip last weekend trying to get up it."

"Nearly? You mean she didn't?" Hunter asked, sounding a bit disappointed. "I was hoping the thrice-weekly visits with her favorite grandson might end soon."

While he knew he shouldn't have grinned, he did regardless. Deb did have a tendency to smother. He hung up his coat, chuckling. "Don't talk about your grandmother like that - or not in front of Michael, at least." He turned to his son with a more serious expression. "Define 'thrice.'"

Hunter grinned widely. "Happening three times. See? I'm not as bad at studying as you guys make me out to be."

"Good kid." Ben clapped him on the shoulder one more time with a smile before making his way from the foyer and into the living room.

Hunter made his way through the living room and into the kitchen, hell-bent on raiding the fridge. "You still didn't answer my question. Any reason you were abusing our shovel out there?"

"I told you, it gets slippery."

Grabbing a soda, Hunter replied from the kitchen, "You're bullshitting me."

Ben laughed, straightening out the mess he'd made of the coffee table earlier that day. Grouping together his notes and the essays he'd been grading, he said, "And what makes you think that?"

"Cause I can always tell when you're bullshitting me." Hunter continued, grabbing his homework folder from the kitchen table in order to join his father in the living room. "You're forehead wrinkles a little bit and your voice suddenly gets quiet. Me and Michael have been able to do it for, like, ever; it's like a superpower."

Ben looked at him skeptically. "Like what, the power to read Ben's mind? Not much of a superpower, I would think." He went back to marking up a student's essay, and said sheepishly, "And here I thought I tended to wear my heart on my sleeve."

"Oh, you do." Hunter laughed, popping open the soda can. "You just give the impression that you try not to at the same time."

Ben shrugged, dropping the subject. He continued grading the essay, but he could feel Hunter's curious eyes on him as he sipped his soda. He sighed, dropping the paper and smiling tiredly.

"What is it now?"

"Other than keeping Deb from slipping on our driveway and breaking her hip," Hunter asked, "what's up with you?"

"Can I just say that I don't like snow? Is that a good enough excuse?"

"If the snow on our driveway was a living, breathing animal, you would have murdered it ten times over by now. So no."

Ben shook his head, shuffling through the notes that had gotten mixed in with the essays. There weren't that many of them, considering he hadn't been able to think of anything worth writing in all of two and a half weeks. Most of them were just messy scrawls of potential plotlines, most of which were crossed out or topics that were too broad to cover in one novel. "It's just the book. I've been having a little trouble with some writer's block. You shouldn't worry about it."

"What gave you the impression that I was? It's just kind of weird for a kid to look outside and see his dad mauling the snow in the driveway."

"Can we just drop the whole snow thing, please?"

Just as Ben seriously started to consider the option of going outside again, he and Hunter heard the front door open and someone step into the foyer.

"I'm back." Michael's distracted voice called from the foyer as he hung up his coat. Hunter set his soda down on the coffee table and got up to greet his father.

"Did you find it?" Hunter asked, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking at Michael expectantly.

Michael frowned at him and sighed, reaching back into his jacket to pull out one of Hunter's CDs that he'd forgotten at the store. "If I have to go up there and get another one of these, I'm just going to hide them all."

The teenager grabbed the disk. "Yeah right. You know just as well as I do that these are the only things that keep me quiet in my room during your fancy dinner parties." He grabbed his homework from the couch and his soda from the coffee table, making his way to the stairs. "Thanks, Michael."

Michael shook his head, making his way into the living room. When he spotted his husband, he smiled.

Ben grinned back at him. "Hey there, Brown Eyes."

"Hey. Still grading papers?"

Ben nodded, gesturing for Michael to come sit next to him. "Unfortunately. Can't really find the energy to do anything else at the moment."

Taking a seat on the couch, Michael picked some of the essays up, scanning over them. Ben threw his arm over his shoulders. Reading through the essays, he realized that they were all analytical pieces - and each on the very same topic.

"You're teaching _Rage _in your class?" Michael looked at him, confused.

Ben shrugged. "I thought that the unit we're in called for it. It was the very first comic about a gay superhero, after all. Or at least, a blatantly gay one." He smiled and revised his statement when he was sent a look of skepticism. He gently pried one of the essays out of Michael's hands. "And speaking of which, I was looking for this one."

"I don't know. I mean, I of all should people should know; isn't _Rage _a little," Michael fished the newest copy of _Rage _out from under the essays. He held it up for his husband to see the cover artwork of the newly famous Justin Taylor, depicting Rage skewering two gay bashers with a giant dildo, "graphic?"

Ben shrugged, taking the comic from Michael's hands. "A little on the violence, maybe, but you see that in all forms of media nowadays. As for the sexual connotations, it's no worse than any other piece of homosexual literature I've seen; if anything, it's better. It depicts it in a more positive light." He grinned at Michael's incredulous expression. "Yes, believe it or not. You should see how some authors from nineteenth-century Europe describe gay people. As if we're animals."

Michael sighed, taking the comic back and flipping through the pages. He stopped on some of his favorite pages, like where Rage blocked one of Icetina's attacks before it got to Zephyr. "If you say so. But don't be surprised when your students notice how odd it is that the author is listed as 'Michael Novotny-Bruckner.'" He got up from the couch and headed towards the kitchen. "Anyway, how's the book going?"

Damn. There it was.

Now, for a moment, Ben contemplated just skirting the subject. He hadn't mentioned his case of writer's block yet, and to be honest, he didn't want Michael to worry about it. What with the store, trying to write the newest issue of _Rage_ with Justin out-of-state, constantly checking up on Jenny-Rebecca and just generally dealing with Brian's name-brand bullshit, his husband had enough on his plate already.

Then again, there was always that nagging feeling that he was keeping something from his partner. Ben had always sworn to himself that he would never do that to Michael, but in this case, he didn't think it would matter whether or not Michael knew every single last detail of the novel's production, right down to every period.

So from the couch, he chuckled. "It's slow in coming, but it's getting there."

"Writer's block?"

How the hell did he do that _every single time_?

"You know, sometimes I wonder if you're secretly a psychic and you're just not telling me."

"Oh, but don't you know, Professor?" Michael grinned from the kitchen door, wiggling his fingers as if doing magic. "That's one of Zephyr's superpowers."

"Are you sure? Cause I could have sworn that would fall under the Rage category." Ben teased, to which Michael scoffed. "And yes, but it's nothing to worry about. I've got it covered."

"Yeah? Have any good ideas yet?"

Ben glanced over to the pages of notes that were mixed in with the essays. Fishing one of them out, he stared at the thick black lines he'd drawn through nearly every one of his ideas. "Some, you could say."

"Doesn't sound like you've got it covered." Michael replied, a bit of concern tinting his voice.

"Maybe not. But I just don't want to keep rehashing the whole HIV plot device. I'm perfectly capable of writing something unrelated to it, and honestly, dwelling on it is hardly helping my health."

Michael frowned. "You know as well I do, I write comics, not novels. I wouldn't be the best judge of what a good plot is and what's not."

Ben sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You'd be surprised, Michael. If anything, you're a better judge of a plot than half of the literature critics I've seen out there."

Michael's frown deepened. He emerged from the kitchen and came up behind Ben on the couch, kissing him on the temple. "I'm gonna go upstairs and call Justin. Good luck with those essays." And with that he, like Hunter had, bounded up the stairs.

Once Michael was out of earshot, Ben allowed himself one last, exasperated sigh. He reached for the papers on the coffee table, separating the notes for his novel and the papers into separate piles. As much as he'd like to be thinking about his novel, he had a lecture to right for the next morning, and he had also promised his students that those papers would be graded. He turned the pile of notes so he wouldn't be tempted to look at them and tried to push those little grievances far to the back of his mind.

Picking up the first ungraded essay he saw, he immediately dived back into the writing's of his students; they'd been assigned to write a paper comparing a _Rage_ issue of their choice to another piece of literature. While a lot of his students had decided to compare _Rage_ to such pieces as _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ and _Giovanni's Room_ (a few people had chosen _Brokeback Mountain_, which Ben couldn't help but grin a bit at) the one that he had incidentally picked up took a very different approach.

"A Comparative Essay

Michael Novotny-Bruckner's and Justin Taylor's _Rage_ Volume 4, Issue 6

and Homer's _The Odyssey_"

Ben read that over a once, twice, three times, trying to imagine what the student's train of thought had been when choosing _The Odyssey_ as opposed to something that would be easier to relate to. He was an English professor, for Christ's sake; _The Odyssey _was mandatory reading material for high school freshmen, and he could hardly remember anything that could betray homosexual undertones about it. If his memory served him well, he remembered Odysseus taking part in several sexual relationships throughout the book, but all of which with women. The only male character in the book that Odysseus seemed to have a strong emotional connection with was Telemachus - but for God's sake, that was his son.

He furrowed his brow, setting down his pen and scanning over the essay. Grading this one could wait until he'd fully and completely read it - for the first time that night, he wanted to actually be shown what comparison this student had drawn (to be honest, all the other essays had been predictable.)

"In the most metaphorical sense, many people in this day and age see the world in a very linear way, without the aid of their peripheral vision. In society, stigmas have been attached to basically anything the politicians and Bible-thumpers can get their hands on, with homosexual literature being among one of the most skeptically viewed of all, second only to the homosexual community itself. For the purpose of a chuckle or two, it would be easy to imagine one of these very critics picking up an issue of _Rage: Gay Crusader_ and having their hands literally burned. While the comic has been praised for its new perspective on the gay population and blunt honesty, it still receives the very same criticism that any piece of homosexual literature does, in the sense that it is mindlessly graphic, both in violence and sexual themes, stereotypical, and generally distasteful. Of course, people fail to notice that these same three pieces of criticism have been attached to basically every other piece of gay literature on the planet.

The easiest way out would be to point out the most glaring of _Rage_'s qualities; its accentuation of the prominence of sex in the gay community. It would be easy to take this one quality and relate it to most any other piece of literature, gay or straight, but at the same time, easily predictable and, in all honesty, staler than a week-old Saltine. Instead, why not focus on the main storyline behind _Rage_? The epic adventures of Rage and Zephyr, the many obstacles they are set to overcome, and the means in which they achieve those goals. Ignoring the blatant use of sex as a plot device, _Rage_ presents many a wondrous and dangerous adventure for the main character to embark on - some of which can be compared (though to say it can be done easily is an obvious lie) to Homer's _The Odyssey_."

The student then went on to compare the travels of Odysseus to the voyages taken up by Rage and Zephyr throughout the sixth issue of the fourth volume. As he was reading through the essay, Ben tried to recall what exactly had happened in that issue. He remembered that there had been a villain who had traveled the world and placed transmitting devices on several small islands that sent out sonar, brainwashing homosexuals into becoming straight. Rage and Zephyr had to track down and destroy all of the devices before the effects of the sonar became irreversible, and while they were away, JT had been kidnapped by Icetina.

He blinked as he came to this realization, scanning over the thesis statement again. He couldn't believe it, but this student was absolutely right - barring the sexual implications of _Rage_ and looking straight into the escapades of the heroes, the issue in question was easily relatable to _The Odyssey_ - and now that he was admitting it, it sounded so ridiculous.

He tore his eyes away from the essay reluctantly (that student was definitely getting extra points for captivating the audience) to look at the notes for his novel, set on the far end of the coffee table.

_Ignoring the blatant use of sex as a plot device_...

* * *

_And here we see JT, firmly in the clutches of Icetina and being mercilessly tortured beyond all measure._

Why that line from _Rage_ suddenly surfaced on Justin's mind, he'd never know.

With his hands clasped behind his back, Justin moved slowly behind his agent as she prattled away about some exhibit that had nothing to do with him. To say that he was spacing out would be an understatement; he might as well have been in a completely different universe altogether. Passing by some poor excuses for tachism, he could vaguely hear the voice of his agent informing him on proper etiquette and whatnot, things that he'd already learned and demonstrated several times in the past when attending these galleries. If he had been given the choice to pick any one person in the world to be his agent, he would have chosen Lindsey without a moment's consideration, but of course, the world didn't work that way. Lindsey was in Toronto, raising her family, and couldn't be in New York just so she could baby Justin.

Not to say that his agent was bad or anything. She'd done a marvelous job so far of arranging exhibits at galleries all over New York and getting important critics to notice him. The only downside he could think of was that she was constantly worrying, but no, not for his sake. She always worried that he'd do something to screw up his chances and all her hard work would go to waste. He didn't know if he should be grateful or not for that, but as long as it worked, Justin supposed there was nothing to complain about.

Having repeated herself nearly ten times already, Justin let his mind wander to other things. He started thinking about the plotline that he and Michael were working on for the newest issue of _Rage_, and how he would design their new character, Abstrakt, who he and Michael had designed to be a ghostly figure that had been in killed by a sudden illness that had spread through Gayopolis. Abstrakt was the only casualty of the illness that had been able to come back and help Zephyr stop the deadly disease, because Rage had already fallen victim to it.

When he'd first proposed the idea to Michael, the meaning behind it had sunk in like a slow-acting poison, and Michael insisted that they set it on the back burner and revisit it sometime in the future. He'd finally agreed to use it for the newest issue, in exchange for Justin promising that the hero in the end of the issue would be Zephyr for once. Considering the context, he'd quickly agreed.

Frowning at those memories, Justin tried to redirect his thoughts to more positive things. He was currently in the midst of planning a vacation with his mother and Daphne; they were going to spend a weekend on Cape Cod and do some camping once the snow cleared up. If he remembered correctly, Ben and Michael's anniversary was just around the bend, and he reminded himself to get working on a gift he could send them. Then there was his frequent communication with Lindsey, who told him that Gus could not only point him out in a photograph by name, but also explain why he was important to his birth from the stories his parents had told him ("Justin made mommy name me Gus!")

And then, of course, there was Brian.

He smiled a bit to himself; when he had decided to leave Pittsburgh to pursue a serious art career in New York, he had expected the distance between them to be devastating to their relationship. But since he'd arrived in New York, it hardly felt like he was very far from Brian at all. They talked on the phone every day, sometimes more than once, they emailed, they used that Skype thing sometimes (when they could get it to work) and Brian was always trying to find excuses to visit him. Kinnetik was starting to bring in some good money, and now that Brian could practically afford biweekly visits, he was hell-bent on making sure he had plane tickets on him at all times.

Of course, Brian Kinney was still the same Brian Kinney he'd known since he was seventeen. He was still very sneaky about expressing his emotions, still very blunt when it came to speaking, and practically unapologetic about nearly everything he did. But since Brian had not only expressed his real feelings for Justin, but also his interest in spending the rest of his life with him, Justin was starting to pick up certain behaviors that spoke much louder than Brian ever would be able to. Small things he said, certain movements he made, they all just added up to how serious Brian was about continuing the relationship. And things were starting to look up, too.

He couldn't keep from smiling wider at the options he had laid out in his head. Having spent so much time in New York already and gaining positive backing from some of the most important art critics in the country, Cecilia, his agent, had expressed to him that by now, Justin wouldn't necessarily have to be in the heart of the art world at all times. If he really wanted to, he could move back to Pittsburgh permanently, and she assured him that at least a good few of those art critics would follow him. Now, the buyers would follow Justin to Pittsburgh's galleries, instead of Justin having to follow the buyers to New York's galleries.

So he'd started seriously contemplating it. While he'd probably have to return to New York a few times a year for some of the more important shows, and he'd have to work even harder to get people to notice him in a much less active area, at least he'd be able to retain his budding career in art while surrounded by all his friends.

He could surprise them and just show up one day. He wondered the kind of reactions that would garner.

Suddenly shaken out of his reverie by a pair of snapping fingers in his face, Justin blinked, having been caught drifting. He looked at Cecilia, who was glaring at him over the rim of her glasses, her hands on her hips.

"Have you been listening to me, Justin?" She asked, her voice quiet and cold as usual. She was a bit like the raving bitch of a mother-in-law that everyone hoped they'd never have to deal with. "I'm trying to bring up some really important points, and you've got your head in the clouds."

Justin frowned, shrugging. "You were telling me what things to say to intrigue buyers and how to appeal to critics." He looked back at her, sensing the sudden air of surprise. "Like you always do."

She scoffed, her brows knitting together. "Well, if you'd bothered to listen, you would have heard me explain how to trump the competition, too, but you obviously don't find them to be enough of a threat to care. Or have I said that in the past, too?"

"Yes, once or twice."

She slapped him on the back of the head; they'd been together for long enough that they both accepted that sort of behavior with each other as normal. Justin could never shake the feeling, though, that it was an action that awfully reminded him of how Debbie was with Michael. "There are going to be some really important faces here tomorrow. If you screw this up, it's gonna be a whole shitload of money down the drain, and I won't be there to bail you out. Try explaining that to your rich-ass boyfriend."

At the mention of his "rich-ass boyfriend," Justin smiled a little bit. "I'm sure that if I were to do something that would waste all your time and effort, it would be for a good reason and Brian would commend me, if anything." He turned to her and smirked. "Or have I said that in the past?"

Cecilia rolled her eyes. She crossed her arms and turned back to the piece they'd stopped in front of. "I just want you in the know when it comes to all the competition. As much as I believe that you're pieces do make the others look like steaming piles of a dog shit," she brushed a piece of hair from her face, gesturing to the piece on the wall, "even the worst of shits can be tied up in a pretty bow and made out to be beautiful. This isn't just a matter of talent, Justin, it's a matter of business."

It was then Justin's turn for the eye-roll. "I've done dozens of these galleries before, and I had plenty of business expertise from when I was back in Pittsburgh. The rich-ass boyfriend, remember?"

"I thought he fired you after a week or so."

"And then he rehired me." Justin mumbled.

"Only for you to be fired by _his _boss." Cecilia smirked. He vaguely wondered how Cecilia had remembered that - he could have sworn she'd been drunk at the time.

He scowled. "And then there's Michael and his business."

"You mean the guy with the comic book store?" She looked at him skeptically. "You think that just any old schmuck who sells comics can survive out here in New York?"

The blonde shrugged, choosing to accentuate his boredom by picking at some dirt under his nails. "Michael isn't just any old schmuck. He was able to bring that store's annuals sales up thirty-four percent, and he and I have _Rage_." He leaned forward and squinted at the painting, trying to decipher whether the brown splotch on the corner was paint or a coffee stain. "You have to admit that _that's_ successful. Besides, I've been to dozens of these showings, Cecilia. Considering the progress I've already made, I must be doing something right."

Looking down the hallway to make sure no one was coming, she grabbed on to the sleeve of her dress shirt and held it up near the piece, comparing the coffee stain on the cuff to the splotch on the painting. Standing back, she said, "It's really well-disguised coffee. Anyway, Justin, that's not the point. Just because you think you have everything figured out - and even if it looks that way - it's not that simple."

She turned from the piece and started walking down the hallway again. They traveled in relative silence, Justin letting her pick her words carefully before continuing. She did seem to genuinely care about his well being at times, but he always had to remind himself that on her priority list, he came behind her. As much as it could become irksome when it came to social relations, there were certain perks to having a slightly detached agent. He knew that if Lindsey were there with him like he'd wanted, she'd probably be mothering him a bit too much. Cecilia would never allow herself to do something so demeaning.

The gallery that they'd chosen to exhibit Justin's new collection (they were optimistic, what could he say?) was a grandiose one, just a tad too big and a tad too pretentious. The hallways were spacious, the showrooms were molded, and there were purchased pieces and obsessively shined awards all over the walls. Mirrors were cleverly placed here and there to appear inconspicuous, when in reality, they were a complicated mechanism in order to bounce light from the high-set windows onto the walls and create the illusion that very light shades of paint were splattered randomly here and there. In Justin's very honest opinion, it was a tad convoluted and when one of the beams of light bounced your way, it was hardly easy on the eyes, but if there was any gallery in New York that the critics would flock to, it'd be this one.

At the end of the hallway, they entered the gallery's grand ballroom, a very spacious, circular area with a high ceiling made entirely of glass as to let natural light in. The floor was decorated with colorful broken tiles, and most of the more important exhibits would be featured here. Justin's very own exhibit was right near the entrance.

He stopped to look at his works again, smiling to himself. He didn't like to think that he was cocky, but if anything, he was confident. He'd been told he'd had a gift; by Lindsey, by Melanie, and even by Brian, as did nearly all of his professors at PIFA, and the crowds of buyers that seemed to gravitate towards his exhibits at these events served to further justify that fact.

As if she was reading his mind, Cecilia said, "Don't count on those buyers that have come back once or twice. They're all fickle opportunists; when they find new meat, they'll gather up as much of it as they can before moving on to a fresher carcass." Justin winced visibly at the metaphor. "The only people you can count on in this business are the critics. They're the ones that are keeping the buyers coming back, not you."

The blonde sent an icy blue glare her way. "So you're saying that as long as the critics tell them it's okay, somebody can just pass off a random scribble on a canvas as art?"

Cecilia shrugged, unaffected by the malicious intent. "How often do you see that, Justin?"

He opened his mouth to reply, but in the interest of the point she was trying to emphasize, decided against arguing. Turning back to his exhibit, he breathed out heavily through his nose, suppressing the urge to sigh.

"Listen to me, Justin," he hadn't realized she'd walked behind him until he felt two hands on his shoulders, "I'm not saying it doesn't take a shitload of talent to get where you've gotten. Look at your work; it didn't get here through wishing." She pointed to the exhibit without her hands leaving his shoulders. "So you tell me; what do you see in these pieces?"

He furrowed his brow, a little bit uncomfortable with the close proximity. Staring at his paintings and sketches, his mind seemed to blank as he tried to come up with an answer that his agent would find satisfactory. "I see a lot of hard work poured into an ounce of talent." He turned his head slightly to look at her. "Isn't that what I'm supposed to see?"

"That's what you see. You're an artist." She stepped back, crossing her arms. "What they see is character. They're not only looking for your work; they're trying to see you through the way that you express yourself. That's why it's so important that you're present for these events, to give them both the real thing and the amplification."

She turned around and walked more towards the center of the ballroom, scanning her eyes over all the other exhibits. She narrowed her eyes - Justin recalled how on numerous occasions, she'd told him how not a single one of them stood a chance against his natural gift, but had nonetheless warned him not to get arrogant.

"If all goes the way I expect it, which I honestly hope it won't, for the sake of your future," she said loudly, letting her voice reverberate through the ballroom, "then this will be your last showing in New York. You'll take the most faithful of your followers back with you to Pittsburgh, and that will be that. I know how dead-set you are on getting back to that Brian."

She turned to face him. He raised his eyebrows skeptically, waiting to get hit by one of those self-righteous, overly dramatic speeches that would normally be accompanied in film by a swelling orchestral score in a vain attempt to make things more theatrical. What he got instead, though, was the blunt and honest truth.

"But if you smile and make nice for these people, only to head straight back to that hole where you came from, they'll see your work as nothing but a few strokes on a canvas and lines of lead. If they don't like you, they won't like your work, and leaving at the drop of a hat will only make you seem flighty." She turned away. "And they'll assume your fame will be no different."

His brow furrowed. "So what do you suggest?"

"Don't pack your bags just yet. Just because a pilot sees the landing strip doesn't mean he doesn't have to land the plane."

* * *

"An interesting metaphor, Mr. Kinney."

Rolling the apple he was holding from one hand to the other, Brian watched his client disinterestedly as he let his presentation sink in. He'd been working for the man for about eight months or so, and the general monotony of the campaign was still so difficult to swallow.

Though he'd promised himself that, after the whole Stockwell scandal, he'd never accept another political campaign as long as he was an advertising executive, Brian knew that, deep down, this man couldn't change a dollar into quarters, let alone change a city. Besides, he was running for mayor of Hartford (the only reason he'd come all this way was because he'd heard rumors of Brian's expertise in advertising) so as long as this guy never set another foot anywhere near Pennsylvania after all the meetings and formalities were over and done with, it was none of his problem. What couldn't touch Pittsburgh couldn't touch Brian.

He suppressed the urge to tap his foot impatiently as the man considered the slogans and images he'd set up around the room. From the other side of the table, Cynthia and Ted waited with breath far more bated than Brian's, who really wouldn't have cared less if the guy had decided to walk out right then and step in front of a bus. While he could have been doing much more interesting things, like playing solitaire on his computer or trying to hit Ted with paper airplanes while he putted around, he was stuck in a meeting with a guy whose thought process was slower than a car with no tires.

It was a simple enough point that Brian had called the meeting to emphasize. The tub of lard that sat before him had not so vaguely insinuated during their last meeting that he'd garnered a lot of confidence through the campaign and was willing to sit back for the last month or so before the election. Obviously, this man either, one, had no brain or, two, wasn't Brian Kinney. While the latter was blatantly obvious (he'd rather commit suicide than look into a mirror and see _that_ looking back at him) he was starting to wonder if the question had an "all of the above" option.

The only person in the room that could have possibly been more bored than Brian at that very moment was the man's wife, who sat quietly behind him. To be honest, he couldn't tell if her expression was really betraying her emotions or if it was just the obviously high amounts of Botox, but nevertheless, he couldn't help but wonder how a lady like she could have fallen for a man with a personality as complex as sandpaper. Then again, women these days tended to fall for the wallets and not the wallet holders.

With a groan of resistance, the man leaned back in Brian's beloved Italian furniture as he took in the sight of the boards put before him. Brian figured that if he could have grit his teeth any harder than he was, he'd have not only broken his jaw, but cracked his entire face. Making small crescent shapes in the apple from where he was gripping it with his fingernails, he waited patiently as the soon-to-be Frank Rizzo of Connecticut let all of what was before him (which, honestly, wasn't a lot) sink in.

"Don't you think, Mr. Kinney," the man said slowly, "that when we're this far in the campaign with a full fourteen point lead, that any more hard work would just be a bit of overkill? Won't I seem a little overeager?"

Brian brought the apple up to eye-level as if to examine it. "Can you tell me how long it took for us to gain that fourteen point lead, Mr. Maloney?"

The man, a bit surprised by the impromptu question, was silent. To be honest, he didn't know; Brian knew just as well as he that he'd let his manager take care of practically everything but running since the campaign had started. He'd been informed that he had a fourteen-point lead, but he hadn't been told how long that had taken.

"It must have been the commercial you sent out two months ago." The man replied, grinning. "It was a thing of genius, Mr. Kinney, truly."

"Each one of the commercials we've aired have gained you no more than two to three points in the polls, only for them to be taken away by Mr. Bruckheimer in the same amount of time it takes to buy a soda from a vending machine." Brian brought his bored gaze over to the man. "The only reason that you're ahead is because Mr. Bruckheimer's manager released quite the controversial ad without his permission last week. They're flocking to you because they have no other choice by this point, but even with that, half of the percentage of voters that Mr. Bruckheimer lost still chose the independent candidate over you."

The shock on the man's face was a little bit too obvious, but since when was the great Brian Kinney known for anything but his blunt honesty? Still, even with that, he could have sworn that he'd seen the man's wife smirk a little bit - if he hadn't predetermined that she was probably a raging bitch with a tendency for gossip, he could have sworn they'd make great drinking buddies.

He felt Cynthia shoot him a glare from the other side of the room and he blinked slowly. He made his way to sit across the table from Mr. Maloney, the dull ache in his knee impossible to ignore by now. Mr. Maloney hadn't moved his shocked gaze from the boards set up in the conference room, letting Brian's words take full effect.

The man's wife sent Brian an obviously exasperated look, which made Brian grin a little bit. He hid the smile, though, before Mr. Maloney looked back at him.

"So you really think it will do any good?" The man asked him dubiously, as if the entire campaign rested on Brian's word alone (which, by this point, it did.) Brian took a few minutes to gaze at the apple, forcing the man to wait just as he had, wringing his hands.

"The best way to ensure that we'll keep that fourteen point lead will be to accentuate Mr. Bruckheimer's blunder." Brian answered slowly, wringing every last drop of patience from the man's being before continuing. "We'll be able to thrust him into a negative light without being accused of slander. As for positive ads at this point, I agree with you that they're useless. All we need to do is maintain your lead; of course, you can't do that unless you work to keep it."

He sent a piercing gaze in the man's direction. "So what do you say, Mr. Maloney?"

The rest, as they say, was history.

Leaving the conference room about forty-five minutes later, having taken care of the final formalities and allowing Mr. Maloney to set the most opportune appointment for their next meeting, Brian instructed one of the interns to grab him an aspirin and some water for his knee. He hadn't even strained it at all, but what with all that was going on with Kinnetik these days, he wouldn't be surprised if this job someday killed him. He didn't notice the concerned looks Cynthia and Ted had exchanged for about half a second.

Cynthia sighed, flipping through her clipboard. "It better just be the knee..."

Brian looked at her with a confused expression and turned to Ted for clarification. The accountant blinked and frowned, his shoulders slackening.

"It was a great pitch, Bri." He started slowly, flipping through some papers in his folder as well. "But... have you been feeling all right lately?" The glance he was shot made his shoulders tense again.

"Please, Theodore, what makes you think otherwise?" Brian asked bitterly, biting into the apple he'd been fixated with since the beginning of the meeting. Really, it was neither Cynthia's nor Ted's job to dissect his performance during pitches. Their purpose was to take notes and look pretty, though he wasn't sure how fathomable the latter was when it concerned Teddy.

Cynthia clicked her tongue, her brow furrowing. "Other than your lackluster performances lately? Nothing. How's Justin, hmm?"

"Justin has nothing to do with this." Brian mumbled. "And I never asked you to keep an eagle's eye on me, Cynthia. As long as the client's convinced, I don't care whether you or Theodore here think otherwise." He sat down in his office chair and tried to massage away the discomfort in his knee.

Her eyes narrowed one more time, reorganizing the papers in her clipboard before walking behind Brian's desk. She gently tapped him on the head with the board as she walked by.

"Just make you sure you don't screw this campaign over at this stage in the game." She warned him, opening the door to leave his office. "Just because we know that this guy doesn't stand a chance against Bruckheimer doesn't mean we can't convince him that it was his fault all along."

As she exited the office, the intern that Brian had snapped at after the meeting came back in and delivered the water and aspirin they'd been sent to fetch. As Brian knocked back the pill, Ted watched with a concerned expression, biting his lip.

"Well, Theodore, don't just stand there looking constipated." He said dryly, swallowing again as to force the pill down. "If you have work to do, go do it."

At that, he opened his mouth to protest, but decided against it. While he'd rather figure out what was bothering Brian, he did have a few phone calls to make, so like Cynthia before him, he exited the office.

Now alone in his office, Brian yawned and leaned back into his chair. While he'd never admit it, Cynthia and Teddy probably had good enough reasons to be worried. What with the flurry of new clients lately and Brian's strange spikes and slopes with his health, he was starting to feel awfully strange. He tried to attribute it to lack of sleep, but even with frequent naps and less clubbing, his health wasn't improving any.

He opened his eyes and looked up at the cracks that spread across the ceiling like spider webs. When he had renovated the Liberty Baths in order for it to be presentable for his new company, the ceiling had been the least of his worries, so he'd decided, along with the renovators, to just plaster over some of the more damaged areas and try to ignore them as much as possible. In retrospect, he was glad that he'd made that decision, because it gave him something interesting to look at while he tried to sort out his thoughts.

He brought his head back down to look at the screen of his computer, the Kinnetik logo spinning idly, as set as his screensaver. He shook the mouse dispassionately, waiting for his blue desktop to return, though he wasn't exactly sure what he'd do once it had. He knew that there was plenty of work to be done - Leo Brown was bitching about some new model, like he always did, and he was trying to pick out an associate partner from a list of possibilities in order to widen his horizons - but all he really wanted to do was curl up on his couch and sleep for a few hours.

Before he could stop himself, he opened his internet browser and loaded up his email, not exactly sure what he'd find there. He'd fallen in to a bit of a habit over the past few months - checking his email whenever he could find the excuse. Occasionally, he found some coupon offers to websites he subscribed to, even though he never visited their stores. Other times, clients would email him about shit he really didn't care about. Sometimes Michael would forward him some stupid video with a cat playing the piano, but somehow it would make him smile in the middle of the day anyway.

And, of course, his favorites were the ones he got from Justin.

He normally got one or two updates from Justin a day - as much as it pained him to sort out his personal emails from his professional emails, he couldn't help but feel a small spark of anticipation when he saw a new email from Justin. He liked to pride himself as a man who didn't get excited or overly joyous over just anyone (hell, he didn't get either of those things over anyone, really) but if there were two people in the world that could always cheer him up, they were Michael and Justin.

Normally, the updates weren't too long. It was just a few sentences about how much he hated where he was staying, how the sink had broken that morning, how his agent was such a raving bitch, and stuff of that manner. Occasionally, he'd be sent a link to an internet article, praising Justin for his talent. Other times, he'd get an update on all the hot guys from New York. What Brian noticed, though, was that in every one of the emails, Justin, inconspicuous or otherwise, reminded him time after time just how much he missed him. As much as Brian normally couldn't find the gut to stomach such sentimentalities, he couldn't help but grin sometimes at the blonde's adamancy to maintain their relationship, even from a distance.

When he opened up his inbox on this particular day, he found two emails from Leo Brown, both of which he chose to ignore, another one of those forwarded YouTube links - though this time from Debbie as opposed to Michael - some photos of Gus and JR from Lindsey and Melanie, and one, being the most recent, from Justin.

He opened the one from Justin immediately, feeling like he needed a pick-me-up at the moment. He tried to tone out the sounds of the telephones outside his office and that odd creaking sound he constantly heard from the heater as to read it.

_Brian,_

_Yes, I promise I didn't tell Cecilia anything about the incident with the handcuffs - I wasn't that drunk. Besides, stuff like that's between you and me, isn't it?_

This was one of the moments where Brian couldn't help but smirk. As much as he'd been teasing Justin about the handcuffs, he was comforted to know that it was still a situation that they both deemed should be kept behind closed doors.

_We finally got the sink fixed. I swear, I would've ripped it out of the wall if I had to spend another day looking at it. It was just hanging there, all broken. _

Though some of his statements were redundant.

_But I guess that's what plumbers are for. Speaking of which, the one that stopped by - man, was he hot. Straight as breeders come, though, so it was a bit of a disappointment. Kept prattling on about his girlfriend._

Oh, yes, he'd raised his lover well.

_I've got a really big exhibit going on at the end of the week. The place is as pretentious as they come, but I'll get noticed, at least. I'm pretty sure it'll be telecasted on one of those crazy local networks, up in the 200 range on the channel guide. I can't say it'll be the most exciting thing you've ever seen, but if you're bored on Friday night, I thought I'd let you know. _

Brian frowned. As proud as he was of Justin, he could think of at least six much more interesting things that he'd probably be doing on that Friday night - and as if Justin had read his mind, the email continued with a similar tone.

_But I doubt you're going to want to spend your Friday night watching some pretentious assholes gab about charcoal paintings. Go out with Michael or something, spend some time at Popperz or Woody's. With how you've been describing work lately, you sound like you could use a break._

He subconsciously rubbed his knee - Justin could read him like a book sometimes.

_Try not to work too hard, alright? It's almost kind of funny - I remember nagging you about partying less than a few years ago, and here I am, asking you to party more. As much as I'd like to be there with you, I'm sure Michael will be great company._

He almost laughed. After settling their issues, Justin and Michael only ever butted heads on one issue, and that was Brian. He could tell that the blonde had typed that with gritted teeth.

_Make sure you keep going to your check-ups and try to stop butting heads with Leo Brown. He's practically the heart of your company at this point - or at least some other important organ, like the bladder. I know he can be an ass, but... well, just let him be an ass and keep your mouth shut about it. _

_By the way, I've been doing some thinking, and while I don't want to get yours hopes up, let's just say that everyone might be getting a late Christmas present from the one and only Justin Taylor. Keep my side of the bed warm for me._

_Love you,_

_Justin_

And as much as his mind focused on the "love you" part for longer than he'd have wanted, the last paragraph was what really gave him pause.

He blinked at it, reading it again. With all his experience, what with looking from the outside in all the time, he was pretty sure that the phrase "_I've been doing some thinking_" was a pretty strong indicator that a relationship was dying. As much as that struck him, the context of the rest of the paragraph hardly suggested that, and he supposed that he was just rehashing some memories of Lindsey when she was just getting around in the lesbian community.

He hadn't the faintest clue what Justin was referring to when he mentioned a late Christmas present (if Brian remembered correctly, Justin had indulged all of his friends with some pretty nice trinkets from the Big Apple) and was even more intrigued by the comment about keeping his side of the bed warm.

He clicked the _Reply_ button before he could think, hell-bent on questioning the shit out of the blonde, when he heard rapping on his slightly-ajar office door.

"What are you grinning about?"

Looking up from his monitor, Brian simpered in the direction of his guest. "Well, if it isn't Professor Bruckheimer himself." At the strange look he was sent, he blinked hard and shook his head. "Goddammit, Professor Bruckner. Christ, this job is gonna kill me someday..."

Ben smiled sympathetically. "Having a bad day?"

Brian sighed, leaning back in his chair and closing the browser on his computer before turning to Ben. "You have no idea, Benjamin. As much as I love spending my time with politicians from Connecticut, there's still that inkling of an urge to just climb to the top of the Sheraton and shoot myself."

Ben shrugged at that, closing the office door behind him. "You're not the only one. I can't count how many times I've mixed up names before. And isn't the Sheraton in Boston, anyway?"

"As if I care?"

"Point taken."

Brian picked a pen up from his desk and tried balancing it on the back of his finger. "So, to whom do I owe the honor of a visit from the one and only Professor Benjamin Bruckner, amateur novelist and husband of my best friend?"

The professor rolled his eyes at that, reaching into the pocket of his jacket. "I wouldn't be so sarcastic if I were you. I actually came to give you something."

Brian's interest peaked a bit. "From Mikey?"

"Well, he asked me to drop it off when I visited his store. He's been busy with inventory and all." Ben shook his head, pulling a brown envelope from his pocket. It was a bit too bulky to just be a letter, but too small to be considered a package. "Justin had some prints for the new issue of _Rage _shipped to Michael for him to look over, and he snuck this in there so he'd only have to pay postage for one package. He wanted this to get to you."

He slid it across the surface of Brian's desk, letting the advertising executive stop it with the tip of his pen. Brian looked up at him skeptically and Ben sighed, putting his hands up as if in defeat.

"I'm just the humble messenger, I have no idea what's in it. I don't even think Michael did." He slipped his hands into his jacket pockets, nodding his head as to gesture towards the package. "But whatever's in it feels breakable, so be careful."

"Leave it to Sunshine to send me sharp objects in the mail." He mumbled, fishing through his desk for a letter opener.

"Hey, Bri, Leo Brown's on line one for you." Announcing it as he walked in, Ted was too busy fishing through a pile of papers to notice their newest guest. He stopped in front of the desk, setting some forms down in front of Brian for him to sign. When he finally looked up and spotted Ben, he smiled. "Oh, hey, Ben, I didn't know you were here."

Brian had to suppress a bark of laughter at that. He sometimes wondered how Ted could be completely oblivious to the elephant in the room - in this case, the elephant being a certain English professor, standing at six feet and built like a friggin' barn.

"Hey, Teddy." Ben replied, smiling. "How's Blake?"

Before Ted was given the opportunity to answer, Brian groaned audibly, finally fishing out the letter opener. "If you two are gonna start discussing Theodore's sex life, kindly do it outside of my office."

Ted rolled his eyes at that, gently patting Ben on the elbow to gesture him towards the door. Brian kept his eye on the both of them as they made their way out, the two of them talking quietly all the way. When he was sure that the door to his office was completely closed this time, he ripped open the crease of the letter Professor Bruckner had been so kind to deliver and dumped the contents over his desk.

While he had wondered ever since Justin had arrived in New York why he was never bombarded by a constant barrage of useless trinkets, his questions were suddenly answered when an off-white letter, along with several of these useless trinkets, came tumbling out of the envelope.

He gave the items on his desk a puzzled look. Deciding to read the note that fell out before experimenting with any of them, he opened the little off-white piece of paper and immediately recognized Justin's handwriting (but really, who else's would it have been?)

_Brian,_

_As much as I know you'll hate me for sending you useless shit, I still couldn't help but pick up some things that you might get a kick out of, or might make you think of me. I also know that that little sentence there will probably make you hate me more, but as cheesy as it sounds, it's true._

_Enjoy your useless shit,_

_Justin_

Only three or four things, Brian noticed, had actually fallen out of the envelope. The first was a small shot glass with the image of the Statue of Liberty on it. Brian smirked at that, making a mental note to get very drunk later that night using this piece of useless shit.

As for everything else, Justin had been right - Brian figured that none of what he had been spent would serve much purpose other than cluttering up his desk more than it needed to be, but he noticed that a small, folded-up piece of paper had fallen out of the note when he'd opened it up.

He picked the paper up, unfolding it to reveal a picture that Justin must have uploaded to his computer before printing it out. It was a picture of Justin, probably that Cecilia had taken, in a dark stairwell, and at the bottom he'd written _Inside the Statue of Liberty_. In the lower right corner, Justin had edited in a smaller picture of the statue and had drawn a dark circle around where Brian assumed the pelvis would be. He was a bit confused by this at first, before realizing that Justin was basically saying, "Here's me, inside Lady Liberty's pussy."

A wide smile broke out on his face and he chuckled a bit to himself. Leave it to Justin, he always told himself, to accomplish something that Brian had made an offhand remark about years before. It was a completely immature joke and Brian had never really had that much of a desire to actually pursue it, but just the fact that Justin had gone to the trouble to try to make him laugh made him... well, it made him happy.

He was still kind of new to this whole idea of love, but to be honest, it wasn't as hard as he'd thought. Justin just made it easy.

Setting the picture down, he finally noticed the forms that Ted had placed on his desk, now covered by the note and all the pieces of useless shit. He furrowed his brow, picking up his pen with one hand and the receiver of the phone with the other. If only his job could be as easy as his sort-of love life.

"Leo, haven't talked to you in a while. How's the wife?"

Outside Brian's office, though, Ted and Ben's conversation continued.

"So, are you still accounting for Lindsey and Melanie?" Ben asked, leaning against the door to Brian's office. Ted laughed sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck before speaking.

"For some reason." he said, "they asked me to help them from time to time. I sure as hell appreciate it, even though I've got a pretty steady job here with Bri." His smile suddenly became more melancholic. "But with all the shit the two of them are going through, it's the least I can do."

Ben blinked at that. "What are you talking about?"

Ted waited a bit, his face blanching before he spoke slowly. At this point, he knew that he had accidentally peaked the interest of Benjamin Bruckner, and if he backed out now, there was that ever-so-small percentage that he'd get his face smashed in. "Well... they asked me not to discuss it with anyone. They don't want Michael to worry, with how he can be sometimes..."

Ben's brow furrowed, but he shook his head. "It'll just be between you and me." As much as Ben didn't want to have to promise that, Ted had a point. Whenever Melanie even so much as insinuated that there could be a problem, Michael would fall into a fit and constantly ask if JR needed to spend some time with he and Ben.

Ted bit his lip for a moment, thinking, before he sighed. Continuing, he said, "It's just that neither of them have really been able to find a steady job yet. Money's tight and all."

Ben frowned. "Well, why wouldn't they have told us that? They know we'd love to help, if we can."

"Oh, they know that." Ted said. "They also know that Michael would host an entire silent auction if it were for the sake of his daughter." He shrugged. "It's not too terrible, they've been telling me. They work long hours for minimal pay, but they can afford bills and the sort, especially with my help. Lindsey works for a Regal and the local library, while Melanie works as a midnight hospital janitor, delivers papers and sells coffee at the Starbucks down the street."

Ben winced. "You're kidding, right?"

"I wish I were. Lindsey's having a hard time finding galleries in the area, and Melanie keeps getting rejected from firms that are already filled to the brim with lawyers. They're getting a bit desperate." His eyes narrowed. "But you didn't hear it from me, okay?"

Ben nodded distractedly, his brow furrowed. "You wouldn't happen to have Lindsey's email, would you?"

The accounted blinked in surprise. "Uh... sure, why?"

"Well, she used to be an art professor, right?" Ben replied as Ted fished out a piece of paper to write Lindsey's email on. As far as Ben knew, they only had Melanie's email, and it was stored in Michael's account, not his. "I'm friends with the dean of an art institute that's relatively near Toronto. I know she prefers galleries, but maybe I'll be able to set her up a teaching position."

Handing over the sticky note, Ted smiled. "I'm sure she'd appreciate that. Thanks, Ben."

Ben smiled back and waved, making his way towards the entrance. "Give Blake my regards."

* * *

Throwing her keys on the side table in the foyer, Melanie huffed a loud sigh, slipping her jacket off her shoulders. As she hung it up, she caught a glimpse of her exhausted face in the mirror placed next to the hanger, and frowned. The late shift at Starbucks was always the worst part of her day; it left her tired, sore from standing, and smelling like coffee and stale donuts.

Groaning in frustration, she let her head rest against the mirror, her entire body slackening. She'd gone to law school, for Christ's sake! She'd even retaken the bar in Toronto! It wasn't as if there was anything stopping her - other than the fact that she was primarily a defense attorney, and defense attorneys work privately. If she wanted her job as a lawyer back, she'd need to be hired by a firm, but none of the firms nearby that seemed worth a second glance were looking for lawyers.

She sighed, staring at her feet. How did things get like this? When she and Lindsey had decided to move to Toronto so that Gus and JR would could have a more stable life growing up with lesbian parents, they had assumed that finding jobs would be easy. Back in Pittsburgh, Lindsey worked for the gallery and Melanie had a partnership with Larry Jacobs, and they were constantly surrounded by their friends and family - the only problem was that they weren't accepted as citizens just because they were gay. It was all too frustrating, how just a small group of ignorant people could have screwed up her life.

It wasn't as if they were on the other side of the world; hell, almost all of their friends had ridden from Toronto to Pittsburgh on bikes during the Liberty Ride. It was only 225 miles, but for the number of phone calls they got in one day (mostly from the Novotnys, no surprise there) they might as well have moved to Japan. At least there, Melanie joked with herself, she probably wouldn't have had to work at a Starbucks.

She heard someone enter the foyer and looked up from the mirror, spotting Lindsey in the doorway. The blonde smiled at her.

"I finally got Gus and JR to stay down." She said quietly, crossing her arms. "You can say goodnight to them, if you want."

Melanie gave her a tired smile and nodded. Walking past her wife, she gave Lindsey a quick peck on the lips before going up the stairs.

"You know,"

She stopped halfway up the stairs to turn and face Lindsey again, who was biting her lip. As she thought about what was going to say, she shook her head, and smiled back up at Melanie.

"Never mind."

And before Melanie could protest, she made her way back into the kitchen.

The brunette frowned - it wasn't like Lindsey to needlessly keep secrets. But, she told herself, she'd probably just had some crazy idea due to lack of sleep and had brushed it off as unimportant when she'd finally caught Melanie's attention. Reaching the second floor landing, Melanie crept down the hallway on her tiptoes as to not wake her children.

She stopped in Gus' room first, peaking her head in. Lindsey had tucked him in nice and tight and he was already asleep, and Melanie smiled at how tranquil her son could be once he'd finally calmed down after a day of excitement. Slowly making her way across the room, she bent down and lightly kissed Gus' forehead, who stirred a bit in his sleep before relaxing.

"Night, sweetie." She said quietly, brushing some of his hair back. "I'll bring you to the park tomorrow, I promise."

As much as she'd like to spend time with Gus at the park, she'd just been so swamped with work. Even though she'd promised him, she hadn't been able to get around to it. Even with Ted helping with their finances occasionally, sometimes saving them a few hundred bucks in the process, they were just barely scraping by with what money they were making.

There weren't that many galleries near where they lived, so Lindsey hadn't been able to find many places close enough where she could get a job. She'd applied to maybe two or three or them, and had already been turned down by two. As for Melanie, there were plenty of law firms in the area, but most of them were small, independent firms that Melanie knew paid little and would be shut down within a few months (she'd seen it happen an innumerable amount of times in the past.) So she'd went out of her way to go find some bigger firms, but each one of them said that they weren't in need of new attorneys, and to try elsewhere. As her frustration mounted, she'd been forced to take a second and third job, all of which paid hardly anything, just so they could afford the small house they'd bought.

They still had a little bit of money left up from when they lived in Pittsburgh, though, but that was a practical nest egg at that point. If all else failed and they were left without a penny to their names, that small bundle of cash was the only thing that could save them from eternal doom. It was just enough money, Melanie sometimes thought with a glimmer of hope, to move back to Pittsburgh, however biased Americans could be.

As she went further down the hallway to JR's room, a floorboard creacked and she stopped immediately, trying not to wake her daughter. She held her breath for a moment, taking in the utter hilarity of the situation. Here she was, in this tiny house, stopping dead in her tracks when so much as a floorboard squeaked. It made her want to laugh, but in the interest of her children, she decided not to.

It wasn't as if their friends didn't want to help - but if there was anybody in the world that held their pride so close to their chest, it was Melanie. She didn't want to have to rely on her friends to bail her out when she'd just gotten to Toronto. Admittedly, a lot of the offers had been tempting; Michael and Ben had wanted to pitch in some money, as did Debbie, Justin, Ted, Emmett, and even Brian (whose offer was probably the hardest of all to turn down.) Lindsey had told them all that they wouldn't accept help until they really needed it, but Ted had argued that at this point, they really did need it. Melanie convinced him that they were just trying to find their ground, when in reality, she'd really been trying to convince herself.

Popping her head into JR's room, she saw that her daughter was curled up soundly in her crib, snoring quietly. She couldn't help but suppress a smile - that girl got cuter day after day. She had noticed a few months before, though, with a little chagrin, that Jenny Rebecca certainly seemed to resemble her father more than her mother, but after some thought, she realized that it was best that her baby girl had inherited some of Michael's cuter features as opposed to Melanie's more butch ones.

Lowering the gate of the crib down a little bit so she could lean over it, she smiled at her daughter, running her fingers through Jenny Rebecca's fine little hairs. She was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

She bent down and kissed her daughter on the head, then on the cheek, still grinning fondly. "Goodnight, baby girl."

Quietly, she rearranged the wall of the crib, then walked to the other side of the room to set her daughter's favorite sound-making machine on low. The tranquil chirping of birds and croaking of frogs filled the air as she left the room, keeping her eyes on her daughter as she left. And with that, she gently closed the door.

Trying not to pound the stairs with her feet, she went back downstairs to meet Lindsey in the kitchen, who was reading something on the screen of her computer.

Melanie made her way over to the refrigerator to get some water, sick of having to deal with coffee all day. "What's that, babe?"

Lindsey rubbed her temples and sighed. "I'm just rereading this email Ben sent me earlier today. You sure you don't want tea or something?"

Melanie shook her head, cracking open the bottle of water. "I'm surprised it wasn't Michael this time, unless he's somehow brainwashed his husband into being just as nosy as he is." She chuckled a bit at that, taking a sip of the water.

Lindsey grinned, shaking her head. "No, it's nothing like that. He just emailed me about the job hunt and all." She sent Melanie a knowing smile. "It seems that Ted slipped our financial troubles to our favorite professor."

Melanie blanched at that, recapping her water. "You don't think Michael will get wind of this, do you?" She furrowed her brow. "I swear to God, if he thinks we're in so much as a speck of trouble, he'll fly over here in a friggin' helicopter to whisk us back to the safety of Pennsylvania."

"Well, at least he cares about us." The blonde shrugged, closing the browser before shutting the lid of the laptop. "But Ben promised he wouldn't say anything that might make Michael panic. As much as I wanted to tell him that it was none of business and that he should stop worrying, he wanted to know if I'd interested in a teaching position at OCAD."

"OCAD?"

"Ontario College of Art and Design." She stood up and rounded the table to talk to Melanie face-to-face, crossing her arms. "Apparently, he's got connections there and could set me up with a position."

Melanie look of panic had long since melted into one of excitement. "Well, that's great, sweetie! Are you gonna take him up on it?"

Lindsey pursed her lips, thinking. "I'm not sure. I mean, it would be great to have a solid job like that, but I haven't taught in a long time. I've gotten so used to working in galleries that I've kind of forgotten everything there is to it."

Melanie set the water bottle down on the counter and took Lindsey in her arms, rubbing her back. "C'mon, Linds, it's got to be one of those things like riding a bike. You never forget." She kissed the top of her head before continuing. "And you never know; something tells me that Ben can be ten times more infuriating than Michael when he's worried. I mean, just look at Hunter."

Lindsey laughed at that. "I know. I guess I could tell him I'm interested and see where it goes from there. Maybe you can quit one of your jobs and bring Gus to the park then."

The brunette smiled warmly at her wife. "I'd love that." She kissed her on the lips before making her way to the entrance of the kitchen. "So, are you coming up to bed?"

"Let me just email Ben quick. I'll be right up."

"Alright."

And for the first time in a few months, Melanie felt good about the coming morning.

* * *

The next day, Ben sat in his office at Carnegie Mellon, arranging the papers he had graded over the weekend and making some final changes to his lecture. While he waited for his computer to boot up, he took a look through the essays again, letting his eyes fall on the one comparing _Rage_ to _The Odyssey_.

He smiled a bit; he'd given the student an -A on the paper. While they'd made some great points and had diverted from the norm on the subject, he'd just picked out a few paragraphs that were a bit difficult to understand when he'd read them, and had circled a few syntax errors. Still, it was the highest grade he'd given any of the essays.

He kept reading that one line in the thesis statement over and over, the one that kept reminding him of the trouble he was having with his novel. He'd been trying not to think about it, but it always seemed to pop up in his mind somehow. He knew just dwelling on it wasn't going to help him much, but he was starting to get a little aggravated with his lack of productivity.

It was then that his train of thought was interrupted by the quiet chime of his computer logging on, and he tore his eyes away from the essays to check his email. He had a few notifications from some of his fellow professors, some emails from students, about a million YouTube links from Debbie (he really had to tell her to stop doing that,) one or two short emails from Michael, and surprisingly, a reply from Lindsey. He blinked at that and opened it - he hadn't expected to get a reply so soon, thinking that Lindsey would have to consider it before replying.

_Ben,_

_I really have to thank you for the offer, and if you could set that up, that'd be fantastic. If there's an interview or anything, give me a date and time and I'll be there. I really appreciate the help; Mel didn't really want anybody to know, but with how tight money's been, this is a great opportunity. I'll finally be able to spend some time outside of work to do the things that really matter - Gus has been nagging to go to the park for a week now! :)_

_Give my regards to Michael,_

_Linds_

Ben grinned at the email, making a mental note to make a call to the dean of OCAD later that day. No matter what happened, Lindsey seemed to be able to smile through even the toughest of times. It was a comfort to know that his stepdaughter was in such capable hands.

Looking up at the clock, he noted the time and started preparing his materials for class, organizing the essays and taking one last look at his lecture. There was one thing about Lindsey's email that had struck him - how desperate she was to be able to spend time out of work.

Staring at the clock, he thought about it. Maybe he just needed to step away from his book and his writer's block would break itself. Whatever worked, he supposed, and he really could use a breather.

But he'd have to think about it later. He got up from his desk and left his office, making his way to the lecture hall.


End file.
